The first of these battles began on 2 November when Lieutenant-Colonel James H. Johnson’s IV/503rd Parachute Infantry was ordered to investigate a possible contact on a hill some four and a half miles south of Ben Het. The operation was not airmobile and the heavily laden company columns, each of which was accompanied by a Montagnard Civilian Irregular Defence Group (CIDG)2 section which acted as guides, moved cautiously along the jungle trails behind their points. In addition to their own personal weapons – M16 rifle, M60 light machine gun or M79 grenade launcher – each rifleman carried 500 rounds of rifle ammunition, a 200-round belt for the M60, four fragmentation and two smoke grenades, and one or more directional Claymore mines; the machine gunners were further burdened by 2,000 rounds of M60 ammunition, slung around their shoulders in belts. Basic equipment, including a change of clothing, several days’ rations and three full canteens of water, added another 50 pounds to the load.
While the battalion was still approaching its objective during the morning of 6 November, the brigade commander, Brigadier-General Leo Schweiter, had decided to move some of the supporting artillery forward by creating a new fire support base on a feature designated Hill 823, using air strikes and shellfire to fell the timber on the summit and create a landing zone into which the guns could be lifted by helicopter. Simultaneously, he instructed Johnson’s companies to converge on the feature and secure it.
At about 11:30 Captain Thomas H. Baird’s D Company came across a single strand of enemy field telephone cable and, nearby, a pith helmet, a sure sign of the presence of North Vietnamese regulars. After cutting the cable they followed it up a hill named Ngok Kom Leat, a mile to the north of Hill 823. In the lead was the company’s 2nd Platoon, commanded by First Lieutenant Michael D. Burton, a graduate of the Virginia Military Academy. Moving warily up the undulating trail that wound up the spur to the summit, Burton’s platoon clover-leafed at regular intervals into the jungle on either side to clear potential ambush sites. It was a slow, painstaking business but very necessary, and by now most of the older hands’ instincts were warning them that the enemy were somewhere in the trees and all round them.
Overhead in his command helicopter Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson had reached the conclusion that so slow was the progress of all his companies that none of them would reach Hill 823 that day. He therefore arranged for Captain George Baldridge’s B Company to be picked up and air-lifted into the embryonic landing zone, leaving A and C Companies to continue their march towards the hill while D Company completed its reconnaissance of Ngok Kom Leat.
At about 13:00 Burton’s point squad came across the spoor left by several bare feet, a roll of field telephone cable and some fresh faeces. The platoon continued upwards to a point where the spur broadened out onto the summit. A few men caught fleeting glimpses of North Vietnamese soldiers in green uniforms and then the entire company went to ground as it was struck by a murderous hail of concentrated AK 47 fire that clipped leaves and branches from above and shredded stands of bamboo.
Some casualties were incurred at once. Baird was hit three times in rapid succession, one round striking the stock of his rifle, another an ammunition pouch while the third shattered his wrist. A morphine injection reduced the pain somewhat, enabling him to concentrate his platoons into a perimeter defence. At about the same time his artillery Forward Observation Officer, Lieutenant Lawrence Clewly of B Battery HI/319th Artillery, was hit in the rump and incapacitated. His task was promptly taken over by his signaller, Specialist 4 Ernie Fulcher, who quickly began landing protective shells around Burton’s platoon, as did Specialist 4 James Duffy with the company mortars.
Such was the noise level that Baird could hardly distinguish the sound of his own men’s return fire from that of the enemy. The North Vietnamese were now pressing attacks to very close quarters and barely being contained. Baird spoke to Johnson on the radio, requesting an immediate air strike. The latter, unable to see through the jungle canopy and unaware of the scale of the enemy attack, declined on the grounds that his air priority was to continue clearing the LZ on Hill 823. Baird’s reply, urgent, angry and insubordinate, made it clear that unless it received immediate air support D Company would almost certainly be overrun.
Now fully aware of the situation, Johnson took decisive action. He called in several of the F-100 Super Sabres that were strafing Hill 823, requested further air strikes and close support from helicopter gunships and, while proceeding with B Company’s lift onto Hill 823, ordered A and C Companies to march to the sound of the guns on Ngok Kom Leat.
The enemy’s determination was not blunted by the F-100s’ first bomb run and they kept attacking Burton’s platoon until their strength was whittled away by a combination of shelling, air attacks, helicopter gun-ships and the defenders’ fire. Thereafter they engaged in periodic fire-fights interspersed with sniping from the treetops. The snipers were difficult to locate but the sight of one dangling head-down by a rope tied to his ankle was encouraging.
At about 15:00 the enemy began switching his attacks to the opposite end of the company perimeter, held by Lieutenant Robert Allen’s platoon, which had originally formed the rear of the company column. Allen had a feeling that a large number of North Vietnamese had also followed D Company up the spur and were just waiting for the right moment to launch their attack. He had, however, used the time available to put his men in good fire positions, so that when that attack came in it was beaten off without undue difficulty. After that, air and artillery support was adjusted to cover the threat.
Meanwhile, Captain James Muldoon, commanding A Company, had received Johnson’s order to go to C Company’s assistance at about 14:00. A Company was then located approximately one mile to the east of Ngok Kom Leat and its route would take it down a hillside, across a stream and then uphill towards Baird’s position. Muldoon ordered his CIDG guides to lead but, once within sound of the fighting, the latter used every excuse to slow down and stop. At length, losing patience, he put one of his own platoons into the lead and ordered his men to drop their rucksacks for the sake of speed. Just how great had been the delay caused by the CIDG was emphasised by the fact that Muldoon had instructed a detached rifle squad, consisting of Sergeant David Terrazas and six men, to make their own way independently to A Company’s position, and that they had worked their way into Allen’s sector of the perimeter by 15:30, fully an hour and a half before the rest of the company arrived.
Shortly after Terrazas’ squad came in, a jet howled directly over Allen’s position. Glancing up, Allen saw a napalm canister splintering its way through the branches towards him and ducked back into cover. It burst just outside the perimeter, the worst effects being masked by a large stand of bamboo. Even so, he was struck by a searing wave of heat and felt the breath being all but sucked out of his body. For the moment he was unaware of the effect it had had on the enemy, but a little later the charred bodies of fifteen NVA soldiers were found, their blackened weapons still in their hands. Clearly, his platoon would have been attacked from close quarters in strength had it not been for the providential, albeit dangerously misdirected, release of the missile.
With the arrival of A Company the enemy pressure eased. Muldoon’s weapons platoon cleared a landing zone and from 18:30 until 22:00 a succession of helicopters lifted out the more seriously wounded, including Baird. During the night the enemy occasionally fired into the perimeter but was kept at bay by the presence overhead of a C-47 gunship which shredded suspected forming-up areas with its terrible fire.3 By morning the NVA had gone, taking with them their wounded and such of their dead as they could reach. Even so, 28 bodies were left on the battlefield, together with a number of weapons, including six machine guns. Items collected from the dead indicated that they belonged to the II/66th Regiment. A Company sustained the loss of one killed and two wounded, D Company five killed and eighteen wounded.
Elsewhere, Captain William Connolly’s C Company had run into an enemy bunker complex while moving towards Ngok Kom Leat. By the
time this had been dealt with night had fallen and the company went into leaguer for the night, joining Muldoon at noon the following day. Captain George Baldridge’s B Company had been successfully lifted onto Hill 823, later designated FSB 15. Having established a defensive perimeter on the summit, Baldridge sent out a two-man patrol to cover the enemy’s most likely line of approach. Hardly had this left the perimeter than both men were shot down, as were five more who went out to rescue them. The first of several North Vietnamese attacks followed at once, the enemy using AK 47s, machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades as they pressed to within yards of the defenders. The Americans beat off every assault, using their own mortars to deadly effect, and were able to call in artillery, air and gunship support. Their casualties, however, were heavy and included Baldridge, wounded. The enemy remained in close proximity during the night but withdrew shortly before dawn, leaving over 100 dead behind. Examination of the bodies confirmed that they, too, belonged to the 66th Regiment and that they were equipped with brand new weapons.
On their own, the battles for Ngok Kom Leat and Hill 823 did not set a sufficiently recognisable pattern for the Americans to recognise that the NVA was now pursuing a deliberate policy of defensive entrapment. For the communists, foiled in their attempt to wipe out D Company, the lesson was that once the American assault had been halted it was imperative that their own attack should delivered into the enemy rear at the earliest possible moment, before he had time to organise his defences and call in supporting arms.
By the middle of the month Brigadier-General Schweiter believed, quite correctly, that in its encounters with his brigade at Ngok Kom Leat and elsewhere the NVA’s 66th Regiment had been seriously mauled and was heading for the sanctuary of the Cambodian border. When, on 18 November, a Special Forces patrol reported a major contact in the area of Hill 875, situated just three miles west of the border and eight miles south of the point where South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia meet, he reached the conclusion that the enemy were the last remnants of the 66th and decided to eliminate them by despatching his nearest battalion, Major James Steverson’s II/503rd, to secure the feature. In fact, Hill 875 was held by the newly arrived and barely blooded 174th Regiment, which had its IInd Battalion on the hill and the other battalions concealed nearby.
II/503rd was operating with only A, C and D Companies, B Company having been withdrawn because of casualties sustained in earlier actions. The previous afternoon it had stumbled, quite by chance, on an abandoned enemy base camp in deep jungle, capable of housing up to 1,000 men. In addition to the bivouacs, bunkers had been dug into a hillside and caves put to use as dressing stations, their floors cluttered with blooded bandages and medical impedimenta. All the evidence suggested the camp had been evacuated very recently and, that being the case, there was obviously a substantial NVA presence in the area.
The battalion remained on the site overnight and patrolled the surrounding area next morning without coming into contact with the enemy. Major Steverson arrived during the afternoon to brief his company commanders for the assault on Hill 875, which would take place the following day. After an air strike had softened up the objective with high explosive and cluster bombs, supplemented by artillery fire, the battalion would attack up the northern spur of the hill with C Company (Captain Harold J. Kaufman) on the right and D Company (Lieutenant Bartholomew O’Leary) on the left. A Company (Captain Michael Kiley) would protect the rear, using two platoons to maintain a physical link with the assault companies while his weapons platoon prepared a landing zone. C and D Companies would each be deployed with two platoons forward and one back, each platoon moving uphill in two parallel columns. When the assault went in, it was envisaged that the NVA would attempt to escape down the southern slopes of the hill, where their retreat would be blocked by the same Special Forces unit that had established the enemy’s presence in the area. Steverson was not one of those who favoured the Airborne’s traditional ‘straight up the middle’ approach in these circumstances and he ordered his company commanders to pull back if they encountered heavy opposition, which would be eliminated by further air strikes. During the afternoon the battalion saddled up and moved to an overnight leaguer area approximately 800 yards north of Hill 875.
On the morning of 19 July, while the F-100s pounded the face of the hill and the sound of their fading jet engines was replaced by the crump of artillery shells bursting on the slopes, the II/503rd’s Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Charles Waiters, provided Communion for those who wanted it. At 09:00 the companies moved off, climbing slowly but steadily upwards through the trees, underbrush and bamboo while the jets delivered a final strike.
At about 10:30 the two assault companies reached the edge of a bomb-and shell-torn clearing some 400 yards wide, beyond which they could see the crest of the hill. Apart from the cratered earth and tangled trees nothing was visible, but as soon the first man entered the clearing he was shot down, as was a medic who went to his assistance. Suddenly the Americans were struck by a wild firestorm of AK 47 rounds, grenades, and RPG-7 antitank rockets. Pinned down, they were unable to locate more than a few of the enemy’s bunker fire slits but returned fire as best they could.
Kaufman reported the contact to Steverson, now hovering above the hill in his command helicopter, and was told to continue the advance. O’Leary, breaking into the net, reminded Steverson of his earlier instructions and was sharply rebuked for his trouble. The renewed assault gained only a few yards before it, too, was shot flat. Steverson laid on artillery support, some of which fell short before it began landing on the enemy bunkers. As the shelling lifted, the paratroopers attacked again, but succeeded in covering just 30 yards before they were compelled to seek cover. From 13:00 four F-100s bombed and strafed the summit for an hour. Once more, C and D Companies rose to the attack but now found themselves under fire from behind as well as in front as the enemy made use of his crawl tunnels to reoccupy bunkers the Americans believed they had suppressed.
Meanwhile, at the base of the hill Kiley’s A Company was deployed in the shape of an elongated U with two platoons stretching upwards to provide flank protection for C and D Companies while the rest of the company covered the rear. A steady stream of wounded were making their way down the hill and at 13:00 Kiley, worried by the slow progress his weapons platoon was making in clearing sufficient trees for the medevac helicopters to get in, requested an LZ kit, consisting of chainsaws, lumber axes and a quantity of explosive. This arrived shortly after 13:00 and almost immediately the enemy launched attacks in overwhelming strength on the thinly-stretched A Company from the west and south. Those at the foot of the hill stood little or no chance. The wounded, waiting patiently for evacuation near the incomplete LZ, were butchered at once. The two flanking platoons received a frantic radio message from Kiley: ‘Get everyone you can down here! I need help – now!’ Then there was silence.
Lieutenant Thomas Remington’s 2nd Platoon was ambushed as it approached the command post. Several men were killed and others, including Remington, were wounded, although they also took a toll of their attackers. This may have cleared the way for Lieutenant Joseph Sheridan’s 3rd Platoon, which reached the command post hollow shortly after, only to find Kiley and five others lying dead. Both officers then concentrated on getting their survivors up the hill and into C and D Companies’ positions, where they dug in using knives, helmets and anything to hand.
It is probable that very few of those on the hill’s lower slopes would have survived had it not been for the self-sacrificial action of Private First Class Carlos Lozada. Many people considered that Lozada, a 21-year-old from a tough background in the Bronx area of New York, was a no-hoper. Those who knew him best thought otherwise and were proved right when, blazing away with his M60 machine gun at close quarters, he cut a swathe through the attacking North Vietnamese. Then, pausing to clear a jam, he moved slowly backwards up the spur’s central trail, firing his weapon from the hip as he covered his comrades’ withdrawal. It was ine
vitable, given the volume of fire directed at him, that he would be killed and at length he fell, shot through the head. His action was to earn him a posthumous Medal of Honor.
Kaufman, the senior officer on the hill, decided to tighten his perimeter, although this meant abandoning most of the hard-won gains. By 15:00 it was apparent that II/503rd was fighting for its life. After nearly five hours’ continuous fighting, ammunition was beginning to run short. Every helicopter which attempted to drop in fresh supplies ran into a curtain of automatic fire, until six of them had either been seriously damaged or shot down. Such ammunition as was dropped fell just outside the perimeter and cost casualties to bring in.
Schweiter was now aware of the situation. He gave the trapped battalion priority on air strikes and ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson’s IV/503rd to march to its relief, realising that this could not be effected until the following morning. The artillery laid a girdle of bursting shells around Kaufman’s two companies, the sweating gunners pausing only when jets howled in to drop high explosive and napalm. Overhead, a C-47 gunship spewed out long jets of tracer at the enemy’s probable forming-up points, tearing apart everything they touched. What most survivors recalled of this period of their long nightmare pinned down among the shattered timbers was the sudden appearance of Chaplain Waiters wherever he was needed most, always with a little precious water for the sorely wounded and words of comfort and hope for the dying.
Despite the fact that the situation was far from promising, Captain Harold Kaufman, the senior officer present, still believed that it would be possible to complete the capture of the objective with an attack the following morning, and by 18:30 he had managed to assemble his platoon commanders and sergeants at his command post. Shortly after, a Marine Corps pilot entered the Forward Air Controller’s radio net, asking whether the latter had any use for two surplus 500-pound bombs. The answer was affirmative and the pilot was told to bomb into a napalm fire burning near the top of the hill. Unfortunately, he seems to have misunderstood the direction his bomb-run was to take and came in over the embattled II/503rd, with results that came close to ending the battle there and then.
Impossible Victories Page 28
